WVXU politics reporter Howard Wilkinson spoke with news director Maryanne Zeleznik Monday morning about Tuesday's special general election in Ohio's 8th Congressional District. Only one race is on the ballot - a contest among three candidates to fill out the remainder of the term of John Boehner, the former House Speaker who resigned from Congress last fall. The winner of Tuesday's election will have a leg up on the November election, when 8th District choose a House member for a full two-year term.

Donald Trump and (presumably) Hillary Clinton will be the featured bout in this November's election in the key swing state of Ohio, the bellwether of presidential elections for as long as anyone can remember.

The first of two elections this year to fill the vacant seat of former House Speaker John Boehner in Ohio's 8th Congressional District takes places Tuesday.

It is a special election to fill out the unexpired term of Boehner, the West Chester Republican, who not only resigned the speakership but resigned from the House last fall. He was, in essence, pushed out by a rebellious Republican House caucus that believed Boehner was too willing to compromise with the Democrat in the White House

Our nation's 16th president is often viewed as a man who was above politics, but in the first book of his multi-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln, Sidney Blumenthal says Lincoln was intensely ambitious, a political genius who held aspirations from his earliest years.

A veteran state legislator and the incumbent moved on in Tuesday's Covington mayoral primary to face each other in November.

Joe Meyer, a former state representative and senator who worked in former Gov. Steve Beshear's cabinet, came in first with 47 percent of the vote in a field of four candidates for mayor, according to the Kenton County Clerk's office.

Sherry Carran, who was first elected to the city commission in 2007 and became the city's first female mayor in 2013, finished second with 40 percent of the vote.

The Kentucky Republican Party held its presidential caucus this March, but the state held its primary yesterday. Hillary Clinton won the Democratic presidential race with a very narrow win over Bernie Sanders. And members of both parties voted for the candidates they want to compete in the down-ticket races this November.

Newport voters will go to the polls Tuesday and find a race that really isn't a race. And if they cast a ballot in that race, it won't be counted.

It's the city commission race; and Campbell County Clerk Jim Luersen said there is a good reason for not counting the votes.

Incumbent commissioner John Hayden decided in January that he would not run for re-election, but did not file paperwork with the clerk's office in time to have his name removed from the ballot, Luersen said.

It's entirely possible – even likely – that many people, including the subset of humanity known as "political pundits," can take polling done six months before a presidential election way too seriously.

Not to denigrate the pollsters. The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, the academic polling operation that released two "key state" polls on the presidential election and Senate elections in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania last week is well-respected and professional.

Four candidates - including the incumbent - are vying in Tuesday's primary election to become the mayor of Covington, a city, which, with about 41,000 residents, is by far the largest of Northern Kentucky's cities.

The top two finishers in Tuesday's primary will face off in the November election for a two-year term as mayor. The mayor with four elected city commissioners set the city's agenda and direction.

WVXU politics reporter Howard Wilkinson talked with News Director Maryanne Zeleznik Monday morning about how a race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton might play out in the critical swing state of Ohio this fall.

Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee for president. Anyone with an elementary grasp of mathematics has known that for some time now.

The once-gargantuan field of GOP presidential candidates dwindled in recent weeks to three – Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich. And, after Trump's thumping of Cruz Tuesday in Indiana, it was finally down to one, with first Cruz and then Kasich falling on their swords and crying "uncle."

Soon after Tuesday's Indiana primaries, both Ted Cruz and John Kasich suspended their campaigns, leaving Donald Trump the apparent GOP nominee. And even though Bernie Sanders pulled out a narrow win over Hillary Clinton, it is all but certain she will be the Democratic nominee. So at this point it looks as if the candidates who will run in the general election are two people who, according to recent polls, most Americans just do not like all that much. And members of both parties are left asking, "Now what?"